Advisors Preferred LLC Has $1.80 Million Holdings in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Advisors Preferred LLC grew its position in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 160.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 13,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 8,504 shares during the quarter. Advisors Preferred LLC’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $1,801,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Western Digital by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,196,484,000 after acquiring an additional 243,177 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after purchasing an additional 186,030 shares in the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter worth $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% during the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after purchasing an additional 431,419 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 17.1% in the second quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. now owns 3,735,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $239,022,000 after buying an additional 545,500 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Trading Up 0.3%

WDC opened at $285.52 on Friday. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $309.90. The company has a market cap of $96.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $227.88 and a 200 day simple moving average of $158.98.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.77 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently issued reports on WDC. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. UBS Group set a $306.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Benchmark upped their target price on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Western Digital presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

Insider Activity

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total value of $272,272.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $552,090. This trade represents a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

About Western Digital

Western Digital Corporation is a global data storage company that designs, manufactures and sells a broad range of storage devices and systems for personal, enterprise and cloud applications. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company develops hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), NAND flash components and finished storage products used in PCs, external storage, servers, network-attached storage (NAS) and embedded systems.

Its product portfolio spans consumer and commercial markets, including internal and external HDDs and SSDs, removable flash memory products and storage platforms for data center and enterprise environments.